It’s refreshing not using AI to draft things. And weird.
The other day I made this post on LinkedIn about becoming accustomed to not having my name on the majority of my writing because the majority of my writing is work product, and currently bylines are not used. You don’t know what I’ve written, what I’ve contributed to, unless you dig through my GitHub profile. I hadn’t really thought about that.
My work writing did have a byline. Sometimes.
When I ran and managed Law Technology Today, I had a byline.
My first software technical writing job, I had a byline.
But there have been plenty of times where I did not have a byline.
Marketing content I wrote for other businesses, no byline.
Ghost written blog posts for busy executives, no byline.
It’s been all work product
The content I wrote that had my byline has long since been rewritten, repurposed, updated, or removed.
Not unexpected since it’s work product.
There’s a sting associated with that, though, like a part of my contribution has been erased. It stings more on things that I was very invested in at the time, like a very large doc set for a robust analytics tool that didn’t have any documentation until I created it. I came up with the information architecture, I met with the SMEs and asked a lot of questions, and then wrote a robust doc suite to go with the robust tool. I was pretty proud of that. Still am. Those docs still exist, and have likely grown and been reorganized and who knows what else by now.
I don’t feel quite the same attachment to any doc set I’ve been part of since.
Well, perhaps one other doc set to help users migrate a complicated product from the old version to the new version that involved a new Operator, components that needed to be installed separately, new resources, different way of scoping, and many other things. There’s a sense of pride in being able to take a complicated technical topic, break it down into manageable pieces, and guide the user through the process. Since I rotated off that product almost a year ago, I’m sure there have been a number of changes, and if I had a byline on it, it would already have been replaced.
Reclaiming my name
I’m not sure where I stopped noticing the byline.
I do wonder if it has been behind publishing content to public.gwynnemonahan.com .
Content I’ve written that has my name attached. Content I’ve written that has my name attached because I put it there because I wrote it.
Currently it’s a mix of fiction pieces, and a selection of prompts and things from some creative writing classes I’ve taken. I started it as a way to keep my docs-as-code skills fresh, experiment with static-site generators like Jekyll, and get accustomed to having writing with my name on it out there.
Yes, yes, this blog has my name on it. Any post, my name is on it. This is a blog, though, and the leeway and expectations and such that comes with being a blog.
public.gwynnemonahan.com is not a blog.
It’s an experiment.
I’ve toyed with the idea of creating PRs and asking people to review/leave comments. Or find an editor willing to learn, willing try, a docs-as-code workflow on a piece.
Fascinating to me how my brain has adapted to docs-as-code, and how I seem to prefer that method for creative writing, too.